A Runway Show That Reminds Us Why Public Schools Matter

Maxwell Osborne attended P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village. Dao-Yi Chow went to Stuyvesant High School in Tribeca. The pair, codesigners of the line Public School, showed a collection on Sunday morning to a soundtrack that included Twin Shadow’s George Lewis, Jr.’s subversive take on Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” originally written as a leftist rejoinder to Irving Berlin’s bombastic “God Bless America.”

The show featured jackets with Michael Jordan’s face and the words, “We Need Leaders.” (Well, um, okay, I guess any port in a storm—at this point I am willing to give Jordan and practically anyone else a try.) Many models wore caps that read “Make America New York.”

But if the clothing on the catwalk didn’t exactly offer an explicit endorsement of public schools, it could be argued (and I intend to do just that!) that the inclusive spirit of the runway made the case for the right of every child to have an excellent free education, surrounded by other students of all races, genders, religions, ethnicities, predilections, and social classes.

Some of the first public school systems in America were started by wealthy people who thought poor children should be educated—how else were they going to read the Bible? In 1805 a bunch of Richie Riches got together and founded the New York Free School Society. The first of these establishments in New York City—P.S. 1 (no, not the Proenza bag! Pay attention!)—was located in an apartment on Henry Street. There were 40 students.

Last week, Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s new secretary of education, became the only cabinet member in history who needed the vice president to break a tie vote on the Senate floor to be confirmed, since every Democrat and two Republicans voted against her appointment. (Oh, for that third Republican who would have sunk the nomination! Alas, it was not to be.) If her previous record and statements are any indication, DeVos intends to divert substantial amounts of money from public schools to a variety of private institutions, a move that has struck fear and fury in the hearts of advocates for public education. Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, has called DeVos “the most ideological, anti-public education nominee” since the cabinet positionwas created.

Much as I personally hated my own public school experience—every day was an agony for me—I did appreciate the diversity a huge anonymous suburban high school offered. How else would you meet kids who wanted to cut class, hang out behind McDonald’s, and smoke pot? My parents certainly didn’t know their parents! But there they were, a tiny tribe of misfits in all their shaggy, sullen glory, waiting to befriend me. And if this is not exactly what those august gentlemen who formed the New York Free School Society had in mind—well, isn’t that transgressive spirit, the way we can gleefully find ourselves so comfy, so at home among people who are so incredibly different than ourselves, what American democracy is all about?